Arthur Ashe, the legendary Wimbledon player was dying of AIDS. From world over, he received letters from his fans, one of which conveyed: “Why does GOD have to select you for such a bad disease”?
To this Arthur Ashe replied: The world over
5 Crore children start playing tennis,
50 Lakh learn to play tennis,
5 Lakh learn professional tennis,
50,000 come to the circuit,
5000 reach the grand slam,
50 reach Wimbledon,
4 to semi final,
2 to the finals,
When I was holding a cup I never asked GOD “Why me?”
And today in pain I should not be asking GOD “Why me?”
“If I don’t ask ‘why me?’ after my victories, I cannot ask ‘why me?’ after my setbacks and disasters,” he wrote. “I also do not waste time pleading with God to make me well. I was brought up to believe that prayer is not to be invoked to ask God for things for oneself or even for others. Rather, prayer is a medium through which I ask God to show me God’s will, and to give me the strength to carry out that will.”
Be thankful to GOD for 98% of good things in life…
Priya says
beautiful…
thanks for sharing this…alot to learn in just one line…
Ankur says
Welcome Priya 🙂
Govind says
Wow, nice post. Thanks for sharing the story with us Ankur. 🙂
Poonam says
Good one Ankur. :clap:
Arthur Ashe was a good man with many talents. Good post!
Aaina says
Oh wow…how poignant! That’s true though, now that I think about it. Thanks for the great post!:clap:
Ankur says
It was really a great one, it was presented by a speaker on Personality Development, Mr Suneel Keswani at ICSI meeting held on Friday here in New Delhi. Will write more about it… in a separate post 🙂
Ashok says
Arthur Ashe never used words like crore and lakh… This is an Indian version.
And one of his most famous quotes is “From what we get, we can make a living; what we give, however, makes a life.”